How to have a character half in/half out a door?

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:00 pm

Hey everyone,

I might have made a mistake, lol. So I built this apartment Exterior/facade. One characters steps up to the door and knocks, then another character opens it from the inside. I put the second character behind the "apartment exterior" layer as to give the impression that he's inside the apartment.

The problem is, I can't have him reach outside of the apartment as he's stuck behind that layer.

I know, I really should have thought this out prior. There's just so many things to juggle when putting together an animation.

Anyway. is there anyway, any hope, that I won't have to redo the apartment layer, which took me a while to create, and have the character be able to extend/reach out from inside the apartment to the outside of it.

If I'm not explaining myself correctly I can post the file.

Thanks for any advice anyone might have.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:16 pm

Have You tried layer animation?

For it to work, You need to put all of the layers You want animated in a bone (Debut/pro) or group (Pro) layer, then enabling the "enable animated layer order" under the Depth sort tab.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:18 pm

Quite simple.

Animate your "inside" character completely, but switch off visibility of the door layer temporarily. Once animation is done, duplicate the whole character layer and put that in front of the door/wall layers. Now go inside that layer and switch off visibility of all parts which don't reach over the wall.

Alternatively you could put that duplicate character inside a mask arrangement which blocks out the parts which are still "inside".

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:56 pm

I like both of your ideas, but still not sure if either will or will not work in my situation. Can someone tell me how to post an image. I looked around but can't seem to find anything other than the img tab which didn't allow me to upload or post an image.

I think if I can show you guys than what I'm talking about it will help.

Thanks

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:18 pm

To post images You first need to upload them to an image hosting site, like http://www.photobucket.com

Then You use the img tag.

Like this

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:09 pm

deleted

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:10 pm

Ooops. It's sideways.

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:11 pm

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:39 pm

You can easily have the door on 2 layers and put the character in between.

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:43 pm

Slowtiger,

But the apartment exterior and door is already one solid layer. How do I split it up? I can either stick the character behind it, or in front of it. Am I going to have to redo it. Could I send you the file to take a look at?

thanks

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:52 pm

Just select the parts that You want i another layer and copy paste it to the new layer.

You may need to tweak it a bit but it should work no problems!

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:14 pm

i may be missing something, but can't you just mask the character on the right side so it looks like he's coming into the door - you only need a square mask that goes up above his head lined up with teh right side of the doorway no?

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:29 pm

funksmaname wrote:i may be missing something, but can't you just mask the character on the right side so it looks like he's coming into the door - you only need a square mask that goes up above his head lined up with teh right side of the doorway no?

Yes, a mask would do, but having both sides of the door on different layers seems simpler, and it would avoid any possible masking artifacts.

Just a thought!

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:32 pm

masking!?

put the character and the wall in a group

create a new layer "FG wall mask" which is a vector layer that has a simple shape in it that covers that part of the wall that will be in front of the character

Group: masking: reveal all
> person: mask this layer
> apt wall: NO masking
> FG wall mask: subtract from mask
> (interior apt): No masking

if that's not clear for you please just say and I'll upload an example

(EDIT: ah -- cross posted!!) (advantage of mask is that the artwork is already there? -- I'd agree with Gilles if this was a "start from scratch")

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 2:46 am

I did as you said, but did not achieve the desired results. Here is what is looks like before:

And here is after:

It revealed the arm, but covered the apartment exterior.